George Washington Williams, “An Open Letter to His Serene Majesty Leopold II, King of the Belgians and Sovereign of the Independent State of Congo By Colonel, The Honorable Geo. W. Williams, of the United States of America,” 1890

Good and Great Friend,​I have the honour to submit for your Majesty’s consideration some reflections respecting the Independent State of Congo, based upon a careful study and inspection of the country and character of the personal Government you have established upon the African Continent.

It afforded me great pleasure to avail myself of the opportunity afforded me last year, of visiting your State in Africa; and how thoroughly I have been disenchanted, disappointed and disheartened, it is now my painful duty to make known to your Majesty in plain but respectful language. Every charge which I am about to bring against your Majesty’s personal Government in the Congo has been carefully investigated; a list of competent and veracious witnesses, documents, letters, official records and data has been faithfully prepared, which will be deposited with Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, until such time as an International Commission can be created with power to send for persons and papers, to administer oaths, and attest the truth or falsity of these charges.

There were instances in which Mr. HENRY M. STANLEY sent one white man, with four or five Zanzibar soldiers, to make treaties with native chiefs. The staple argument was that the white man’s heart had grown sick of the wars and rumours of war between one chief and another, between one village and another; that the white man was at peace with his black brother, and desired to “confederate all African tribes” for the general defense and public welfare. All the sleight-of- hand tricks had been carefully rehearsed, and he was now ready for his work. A number of electric batteries had been purchased in London, and when attached to the arm under the coat, communicated with a band of ribbon which passed over the palm of the white brother’s hand, and when he gave the black brother a cordial grasp of the hand the black brother was greatly surprised to find his white brother so strong, that he nearly knocked him off his feet in giving him the hand of fellowship. When the native inquired about the disparity of strength between himself and his white brother, he was told that the white man could pull up trees and perform the most prodigious feats of strength. Next came the lens act. The white brother took from his pocket a cigar, carelessly bit off the end, held up his glass to the sun and complaisantly smoked his cigar to the great amazement and terror of his black brother. The white man explained his intimate relation to the sun, and declared that if he were to request him to burn up his black brother’s village it would be done. The third act was the gun trick. The white man took a percussion cap gun, tore the end of the paper which held the powder to the bullet, and poured the powder and paper into the gun, at the same time slipping the bullet into the sleeve of the left arm. A cap was placed upon the nipple of the gun, and the black brother was implored to step off ten yards and shoot at his white brother to demonstrate his statement that he was a spirit, and, therefore, could not be killed. After much begging the black brother aims the gun at his white brother, pulls the trigger, the gun is discharged, the white man stoops . . . and takes the bullet from his shoe!

By such means as these, too silly and disgusting to mention, and a few boxes of gin, whole villages have been signed away to your Majesty.

When I arrived in the Congo, I naturally sought for the results of the brilliant programme: “fostering care”, “benevolent enterprise”, an “honest and practical effort” to increase the knowledge of the natives “and secure their welfare”. 1 had never been able to conceive of Europeans, establishing a government in a tropical country, without building a hospital; and yet from the mouth of the Congo River to its head-waters, here at the seventh cataract, a distance of 1,448 miles, there is not a solitary hospital for Europeans, and only three sheds for sick Africans in the service of the State, not fit to be occupied by a horse. Sick sailors frequently die on board their vessels at Banana Point; and if it were not for the humanity of the Dutch Trading Company at that place—who have often opened their private hospital to the sick of other countries—many more might die. There is not a single chaplain in the employ of your Majesty’s Government to console the sick or bury the dead. Your white men sicken and die in their quarters or on the caravan road, and seldom have Christian burial. With few exceptions, the surgeons of your Majesty’s Government have been gentlemen of professional ability, devoted to duty, but usually left with few medical stores and no quarters in which to treat their patients. The African soldiers and labourers of your Majesty’s Government fare worse than the whites, because they have poorer quarters, quite as bad as those of the natives; and in the sheds, called hospitals, they languish upon a bed of bamboo poles without blankets, pillows or any food different from that served to them when well, rice and fish.

I was anxious to see to what extent the natives had “adopted the fostering care” of your Majesty’s “benevolent enterprise” (?), and I was doomed to bitter disappointment. Instead of the natives of the Congo “adopting the fostering care” of your Majesty’s Government, they everywhere complain that their land has been taken from them by force; that the Government is cruel and arbitrary, and declare that they neither love nor respect the Government and its flag. Your Majesty’s Government has sequestered their land, burned their towns, stolen their property, enslaved their women and children, and committed other crimes too numerous to mention in detail. It is natural that they everywhere shrink from “the fostering care” your Majesty’s Government so eagerly proffers them.

There has been, to my absolute knowledge, no “honest and practical effort made to increase their knowledge and secure their welfare.” Your Majesty’s Government has never spent one franc for educational purposes, nor instituted any practical system of industrialism. Indeed the most unpractical measures have been adopted against the natives in nearly every respect; and in the capital of your Majesty’s Government at Boma there is not a native employed. The labour system is radically unpractical; the soldiers and labourers of your Majesty’s Government are very largely imported from Zanzibar at a cost of £10 per capita, and from Sierra Leone, Liberia, Accra and Lagos at from £1 to £1/10 per capita. These recruits are transported under circumstances more cruel than cattle in European countries. They eat their rice twice a day by the use of their fingers; they often thirst for water when the season is dry; they are exposed to the heat and rain, and sleep upon the damp and filthy decks of the vessels often so closely crowded as to lie in human ordure. And, of course, many die.

Upon the arrival of the survivors in the Congo they are set to work as labourers at one shilling a day; as soldiers they are promised sixteen shillings per month, in English money, but are usually paid off in cheap handkerchiefs and poisonous gin. The cruel and unjust treatment to which these people are subjected breaks the spirits of many of them, makes them distrust and despise your Majesty’s Government. They are enemies, not patriots.

There are from sixty to seventy officers of the Belgian army in the service of your Majesty’s Government in the Congo of whom only about thirty are at their post; the other half are in Belgium on furlough. These officers draw double pay—as soldiers and as civilians. It is not my duty to criticise the unlawful and unconstitutional use of these officers coming into the service of this African State. Such criticism will come with more grace from some Belgian statesman, who may remember that there is no constitutional or organic relation subsisting between his Government and the purely personal and absolute monarchy your Majesty has established in Africa. But I take the liberty to say that many of these officers are too young and inexperienced to be entrusted with the difficult work of dealing with native races. They are ignorant of native character, lack wisdom, justice, fortitude and patience. They have estranged the natives from your Majesty’s Government, have sown the seed of discord between tribes and villages, and some of them have stained the uniform of the Belgian officer with murder, arson and robbery. Other officers have served the State faithfully, and deserve well of their Royal Master.

From these general observations I wish now to pass to specific charges against your Majesty’s Government.

FIRST —Your Majesty’s Government is deficient in the moral military and financial strength, necessary to govern a territory o 1,508,000 square miles, 7,251 miles of navigation, and 31,694 square miles of lake surface. In the Lower Congo River there is but One post, in the cataract region one. From Leopoldville to N’Gombe, a distance of more than 300 miles, there is not a single soldier or civilian. Not one out of every twenty State-officials know the language of the natives, although they are constantly issuing laws, difficult even for Europeans, and expect the natives to comprehend and obey them. Cruelties of the most astounding character are practised by the natives, such as burying slaves alive in the grave of a dead chief, cutting off the heads of captured warriors in native combats, and no effort is put forth by your Majesty’s Government to prevent them. Between 800 and 1,000 slaves are sold to be eaten by the natives of the Congo State annually; and slave raids, accomplished by the most cruel and murderous agencies, are carried on within the territorial limits of your Majesty’s Government which is impotent. There are only 2,300 soldiers in the Congo.

SECOND —Your Majesty’s Government has established nearly fifty posts, consisting of from two to eight mercenary slave-soldiers from the East Coast. There is no white commissioned officer at these posts; they are in charge of the black Zanzibar soldiers, and the State expects them not only to sustain themselves, but to raid enough to feed the garrisons where the white men are stationed. These piratical, buccaneering posts compel the natives to furnish them with fish, goats, fowls, and vegetables at the mouths of their muskets; and whenever the natives refuse to feed these vampires, they report to the main station and white officers come with an expeditionary force and burn away the homes of the natives. These black soldiers, many of whom are slaves, exercise the power of life and death. They are ignorant and cruel, because they do not comprehend the natives; they are imposed upon them by the State. They make no report as to the number of robberies they commit, or the number of lives they take; they are only required to subsist upon the natives and thus relieve your Majesty’s Government of the cost of feeding them. They are the greatest curse the country suffers now.

THIRD —Your Majesty’s Government is guilty of violating its contracts made with its soldiers, mechanics and workmen, many of whom are subjects of other Governments. Their letters never reach home.

FOURTH —The Courts of your Majesty’s Government are abortive, unjust, partial and delinquent. I have personally witnessed and examined their clumsy operations. The laws printed and circulated in Europe “for the Protection of the blacks” in the Congo, are a dead letter and a fraud. I have heard an officer of the Belgian Army pleading the cause of a white man of low degree who had been guilty of beating and stabbing a black man, and urging race distinctions and prejudices as good and sufficient reasons why his client should be adjudged innocent. I know of prisoners remaining in custody for six and ten months because they were not judged. I saw the white servant of the Governor-General, CAMILLE JANSSEN, detected in stealing a bottle of wine from a hotel table. A few hours later the Procurer-General searched his room and found many more stolen bottles of wine and other things, not the property of servants. No one can be prosecuted in the State of Congo without an order of the Governor-General, and as he refused to allow his servant to be arrested, nothing could be done. The black servants in the hotel, where the wine had been stolen, had been often accused and beaten for these thefts, and now they were glad to be vindicated. But to the surprise of every honest man, the thief was sheltered by the Governor General of your Majesty’s Government.

FIFTH —Your Majesty’s Government is excessively cruel to its prisoners, condemning them, for the slightest offences, to the chain gang, the like of which can not be seen in any other Government in the civilized or uncivilized world. Often these ox-chains eat into the necks of the prisoners and produce sores about which the flies circle, aggravating the running wound; so the prisoner is constantly worried. These poor creatures are frequently beaten with a dried piece of hippopotamus skin, called a “chicote”, and usually the blood flows at every stroke when well laid on. But the cruelties visited upon soldiers and workmen are not to be compared with the sufferings of the poor natives who, upon the slightest pretext, are thrust into the wretched prisons here in the Upper River. I cannot deal with the dimensions of these prisons in this letter, but will do so in my report to my Government.

SIXTH —Women are imported into your Majesty’s Government for immoral purposes. They are introduced by two methods, viz., black men are dispatched to the Portuguese coast where they engage these women as mistresses of white men, who pay to the procurer a monthly sum. The other method is by capturing native women and condemning them to seven years’ servitude for some imaginary crime against the State with which the villages of these women are charged. The State then hires these woman out to the highest bidder, the officers having the first choice and then the men. Whenever children are born of such relations, the State maintains that the women being its property the child belongs to it also. Not long ago a Belgian trader had a child by a slave-woman of the State, and he tried to secure possession of it that he might educate it, but the Chief of the Station where he resided, refused to be moved by his entreaties. At length he appealed to the Governor-General, and he gave him the woman and thus the trader obtained the child also. This was, however, an unusual case of generosity and clemency; and there is only one post that I know of where there is not to be found children of the civil and military officers of your Majesty’s Government abandoned to degradation; white men bringing their own flesh and blood under the lash of a most cruel master, the State of Congo.

SEVENTH —Your Majesty’s Government is engaged in trade and commerce, competing with the organised trade companies of Belgium, England, France, Portugal and Holland. It taxes all trading companies and exempts its own goods from export-duty, and makes many of its officers ivory-traders, with the promise of a liberal commission upon all they can buy or get for the State. State soldiers patrol many villages forbidding the natives to trade with any person but a State official, and when the natives refuse to accept the price of the State, their goods are seized by the Government that promised them “protection”. When natives have persisted in trading with the trade-companies the State has punished their independence by burning the villages in the vicinity of the trading houses and driving the natives away.

EIGHTH —Your Majesty’s Government has violated the General Act of the Conference of Berlin by firing upon native canoes; by confiscating the property of natives; by intimidating native traders, and preventing them from trading with white trading companies; by quartering troops in native villages when there is no war; by causing vessels bound from “Stanley-Pool” to “Stanley-Falls”, to break their journey and leave the Congo, ascend the Aruhwimi river to Basoko, to be visited and show their papers; by forbidding a mission steamer to fly its national flag without permission from a local Government; by permitting the natives to carry on the slave- trade, and by engaging in the wholesale and retail slave-trade itself.

NINTH —-Your Majesty’s Government has been, and is now, guilty of waging unjust and cruel wars against natives, with the hope of securing slaves and women, to minister to the behests of the officers of your Government. In such slave-hunting raids one village is armed by the State against the other, and the force thus secured is incorporated with the regular troops. I have no adequate terms with which to depict to your Majesty the brutal acts of your soldiers upon such raids as these. The soldiers who open the combat are usually the bloodthirsty cannibalistic Bangalas, who give no quarter to the aged grandmother or nursing child at the breast of its mother. There are instances in which they have brought the heads of their victims to their white officers on the expeditionary steamers, and afterwards eaten the bodies of slain children. In one war two Belgian Army officers saw, from the deck of their steamer, a native in a canoe some distance away. He was not a combatant and was ignorant of the conflict in progress upon the shore, some distance away. The officers made a wager of £5 that they could hit the native with their rifles. Three shots were fired and the native fell dead, pierced through the head, and the trade canoe was transformed into a funeral barge and floated silently down the river.

TENTH —Your Majesty’s Government is engaged in the slave-trade, wholesale and retail. It buys and sells and steals slaves. Your Majesty’s Government gives £3 per head for able bodied slaves for military service. Officers at the chief stations get the men and receive the money when they are transferred to the State; but there are some middle-men who only get from twenty to twenty-five francs per head. Three hundred and sixteen slaves were sent down the river recently, and others are to follow. These poor natives are sent hundreds of miles away from their villages, to serve among other natives whose language they do not know. When these men run away a reward of 1,000 N’taka is offered. Not long ago such a recaptured slave was given one hundred “chikote” each day until he died. Three hundred N’taka—brassrod-—is the price the State pays for a slave, when bought from a native. The labour force at the stations of your Majesty’s Government in the Upper River is composed of slaves of all ages and both sexes.

ELEVENTH —Your Majesty’s Government has concluded a contract with the Arab Governor at this place for the establishment of a line of military posts from the Seventh Cataract to Lake Tanganyika territory to which your Majesty has no more legal claim, than I have to be Commander-in-Chief of the Belgian army. For this work the Arab Governor is to receive five hundred stands of arms, five thousand kegs of powder, and £20,000 sterling, to he paid in several instalments. As I write, the news reaches me that these much- treasured and long-looked for materials of war are to be discharged at Basoko, and the Resident here is to be given the discretion as to the distribution of them. There is a feeling of deep discontent among the Arabs here, and they seem to feel that they are being trifled with. As to the significance of this move Europe and America can judge without any comment from me, especially England.

TWELFTH —The agents of your Majesty’s Government have misrepresented the Congo country and the Congo railway. Mr. H. M. STANLEY, the man who was your chief agent in setting up your authority in this country, has grossly misrepresented the character of the country. Instead of it being fertile and productive it is sterile and unproductive. The natives can scarcely subsist upon the vegetable life produced in some parts of the country. Nor will this condition of affairs change until the native shall have been taught by the European the dignity, utility and blessing of labour. There is no improvement among the natives, because there is an impassable gulf between them and your Majesty’s Government, a gulf which can never be bridged. HENRY M. STANLEY’S name produces a shudder among this simple folk when mentioned; they remember his broken promises, his copious profanity, his hot temper, his heavy blows, his severe and rigorous measures, by which they were mulcted of their lands. His last appearance in the Congo produced a profound sensation among them, when he led 500 Zanzibar soldiers with 300 camp followers on his way to relieve EMIN PASHA. They thought it meant complete subjugation, and they fled in confusion. But the only thing they found in the wake of his march was misery. No white man commanded his rear column, and his troops were allowed to straggle, sicken and die; and their bones were scattered over more than two hundred miles of territory.

CONCLUSIONS

Against the deceit, fraud, robberies, arson, murder, slave-raiding, and general policy of cruelty of your Majesty’s Government to the natives, stands their record of unexampled patience, long-suffering and forgiving spirit, which put the boasted civilisation and professed religion of your Majesty’s Government to the blush. During thirteen years only one white man has lost his life by the hands of the natives, and only two white men have been killed in the Congo. Major Barttelot was shot by a Zanzibar soldier, and the captain of a Belgian trading-boat was the victim of his own rash and unjust treatment of a native chief.

All the crimes perpetrated in the Congo have been done in your name, and you must answer at the bar of Public Sentiment for the misgovernment of a people, whose lives and fortunes were entrusted to you by the august Conference of Berlin, 1884—1885. I now appeal to the Powers which committed this infant State to your Majesty’s charge, and to the great States which gave it international being; and whose majestic law you have scorned and trampled upon, to call and create an International Commission to investigate the charges herein preferred in the name of Humanity, Commerce, Constitutional Government and Christian Civilisation.

I base this appeal upon the terms of Article 36 of Chapter VII of the General Act of the Conference of Berlin, in which that August assembly of Sovereign States reserved to themselves the right “to introduce into it later and by common accord the modifications or ameliorations, the utility of which may be demonstrated experience”.

I appeal to the Belgian people and to their Constitutional Government, so proud of its traditions, replete with the song and story of its champions of human liberty, and so jealous of its present position in the sisterhood of European States—to cleanse itself from the imputation of the crimes with which your Majesty’s personal State of Congo is polluted.

I appeal to Anti-Slavery Societies in all parts of Christendom, to Philanthropists, Christians, Statesmen, and to the great mass of people everywhere, to call upon the Governments of Europe, to hasten the close of the tragedy your Majesty’s unlimited Monarchy is enacting in the Congo.

I appeal to our Heavenly Father, whose service is perfect love, in witness of the purity of my motives and the integrity of my aims; and to history and mankind I appeal for the demonstration and vindication of the truthfulness of the charge I have herein briefly outlined.

And all this upon the word of honour of a gentleman, I subscribe myself your Majesty’s humble and obedient servant,

GEO. W. WILLIAMSStanley Falls, Central Africa, July 18th, 1890.

Sources: Adelaide Cromwell Hill & Martin Kilson, eds., Apropos of Africa: Sentiments of American Negro Leaders on Africa From the 1800s to the 1950s (London: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1969)

The Bitter Medicine Book Club starts on June 1st. We will be reading "King Leopold's Ghost" by Adam Hochschild. We look forward to everyone's thoughts on the book, positive or negative. You may purchase the book using the affiliate link below:

Favorite quote: "Whenever an oppressed black man shouts for equality he is called a racist. This was said of Marcus Garvey in his day. Imagine that! We are so inferior that if we demand equality of opportunity and power that is outrageously racist. Black people who speak up for their rights must beware of this devise of false accusations. It is intended to place you on the defensive and if possible embarrass you into silence. How can we be both oppressed and embarrassed? Is it that our major concern is not to hurt the feelings of the oppressor?" -- Walter Rodney.

​ In Dr. Marimba Ani’s seminal work Yurugu, she gives a thorough and thought-provoking examination of European culture and thought. Dr. Ani is an anthropologist and African studies scholar. She has taught as a Professor of African Studies in the Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York City. Dr. Ani is also credited with the usage of the Swahili word Maafa (Great Disaster) in terms of history and ongoing effects of atrocities inflicted upon people of African descent, including both the Arab and Trans-Atlantic slave trade. In writing Yurugu, Dr. Ani pulls back the veil on European culture. Dr. Ani poses the question. “What is the relationship between the way in which Europeans conceive the world and the way in which they relate to majority peoples?” This is a difficult question, and this is the type of book that must be given time and study. The effort is well worth it, and Yurugu is a textbook in helping people of African descent see the inner workings of white supremacy.

​What is ​​yurugu? Dr. Ani writes that yurugu is “a being in Dogon mythology, which is responsible for disorder in the universe. This is a being conceived in denial of the natural order, which then acts to initiate and promote disharmony. In African Cosmology, such a being is deficient in spiritual sensibility, in perpetually in conflict, is limited cognitively and is threatening to the well-being of humanity” (Ani xxviii) In exposing the European façade, Dr. Ani creates her own terminology derived from African languages. Before going further into the review, a quick overview of some of the terms will be necessary.

Asili: the central seed or "germinating matrix" of a culture. The ideological core. The asili of European culture is dominated by the concepts of separation and control.

Utamawazo: Culturally structured thought or worldview. The way in which the thought of members of a culture must be patterned if the asili is to be fulfilled.

Utamaroho: The vital force of a culture, set in motion by the asili. It motivates the collective behavior of its members Both the utamawazo and the utamaroho are born out of the asili and in turn, affirm it. The utamaroho of European culture is domination.

​Dr. Ani writes “This study was not approached objectively. It is not possible to be objective towards Europe: certainly the victims of its cultural, political and economic imperialism are not objective, if they are sane.” (Ani 23) The first section of Yurugu deals with Thought and Iconography. European thought separates the person into conflicting entities. Reason/emotion, mind/body. Dr. Ani takes the reader back to ancient Greece and the teachings of Plato. “What Plato seems to have done is laid a rigorously constructed foundation for the repudiation of the symbolic sense – the denial of cosmic, intuitive knowledge.” (Ani 30) According to Platonic thought, the thinker must be independent from the subject. This allows for control. “Plato distinguishes the compartments of “reason” and “appetite” or “emotion” They are in opposition to one another and help to constitute, what has become one of the most problematical dichotomies in European thought and behavior. This opposition results in the splitting of the human being. The superiority of the intellect over the emotional self is established as spirit separated from matter” (Ani 32) Once artificially split, the splits become “irreconcilable, antagonistic differences” (Ani 33) Unlike the Zen conception of Yin and Yang, these contrast are not conceived as parts of a whole, but rather opponents and threatening to one another. These splits limit people’s ability to experience the universe as an integrated whole. In contrast, the African world view and mode of thought rest on the assumption of the interrelatedness of the cosmos. The separation of the self and the objectification of matter leads to what Dr. Ani refers to as ‘despiritualization’, “the denial of spiritual reality and the inability to experience spirit.” (Ani xxvii).

​The use of religion and ideology in the European culture is used to fulfil the needs of the asili. “No other civilization has been as successfully imperialistic. No other has used institutionalized religion as pragmatically in the support of its imperialistic objectives. The spiritual deficit does not appear to count for much, if one is impressed by world dominance. The asili demands power and itself powerful” (Ani 195) Religion has often been used by to further the imperialistic aims of European culture. Christianity is complicit in this. “From its inception, Christian ideology has traditionally condoned and often mandated violent aggression and brutality on the part of the European.” (Ani 159) This can be seen in the Crusades, the genocide against indigenous inhabitants of the Americas and Australia, as well the brutalities of the slave trade and the colonization of the African continent. In effect, of Christian brotherhood is nothing but the brotherhood of a gang. Within the gang rules are enforced, but outside the gang, anything goes.

The next section of the book deals with Image and National Consciousness. “The Europeans view of himself reveals the nature of the European utamaroho (culturally structured thought) and is dialectically related to his view of others.” (Ani 237) Europeans like to see themselves as rational and scientific. At the same time, the European also embraces the image of the conqueror. “The exercise of this power, which Europeans attribute to themselves, and which they continuously seek, is manifested in the ability – no, the mandate – to conquer everything that they find. A leading member of the Alt-Right movement, Richard Spencer, has said that “to white is to be a striver, a crusader, an explorer and conqueror” This need to dominate is “sanctioned by the European utamaroho that provides a moral justification for it.” (Ani 249) Part of the image of conqueror is also the image of world savior. Rudyard Kipling’s poem The White Man’s Burden is the expression of that ideal in European culture. “This aspect of the European utamaroho implies the idea of European superiority; it does not mean altruism, as it has been misunderstood to do. Europeans are themselves the ‘Christ’, who would save the world and whose qualities are superior enough to enable them to stand as model for all of us to emulate. The arrogance and presumption in the European self-image in relation to the rest of the world are evidenced in the expansionist expeditions they have undertaken, whether in the early or contemporary stages of their developing empire, Europeans, at best, have related with paternalism to the rest of the world.” (Ani 252) In taking an African centered approach to European culture, the asili concept shows how the myth of racial superiority is deeply interwoven in the ideology. The image of others is the complement of self-image. Dr. Ani states that “The utamaroho is such that they could not survive (as European) without this image of an opposite upon which they can act out all of those things that help maintain their positive self-image (Ani 280) If the European (and European American’s) image of themselves is the crusader, the striver, etc. then the non-European is the savage, the untamed. In contrast, non-Europeans “all too often make the mistake of attempting to treat this European, who comes to take the land and who looks so different from us as a brother or a sister! In other words, the purely rhetorical precepts of behavior propagandized as the “Christian virtues” are actually the models of behavior natural to other cultures and older traditions than that of the European” (Ani 304) For example, when Christopher Columbus first met the Taino, the indigenous peoples of the Bahamas, he remarked “They traded with us and gave us everything they had, with good will ... they took great delight in pleasing us ... They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor do they murder or steal...Your highness may believe that in all the world there can be no better people ... They love their neighbors as themselves, and they have the sweetest talk in the world, and are gentle and always laughing.” Yet Columbus made plans to enslave these kind people. “"I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased." The abuse and extermination of the Taino, was repeated throughout the world and upon various non-European peoples from the Artic to Australia.

Dr. Ani also writes that in European/Euro-American culture, hypocrisy and deception are a way of life. This is known as the rhetorical ethic. “Within the nature of European culture there exists a statement of value that has no meaning for the members of that culture.” (Ani 312) The rhetorical ethics is not meant to for the members of the culture that produced it, but in fact serves to disarm the victims of the Europeans. Some examples of the rhetorical ethic are action is the Declaration of Independence of the United States declaring that all men created equal, yet keeping millions of African people in chattel slavery. The writer of the document, Thomas Jefferson, was in fact a slaveholder, and had several children with his slave mistress. Dr. Ani explains the characteristics of the rhetorical ethic:

It is a statement that is in no way normative for the European: I.E it is not a guide for behavior.

It is directed towards the people outside of European society – those who are the intended victims

Its purpose is to facilitate Western European imperialism by immobilizing nationalistic resistance movements of other peoples and making European dominance appear to be the result of disinterested and altruistic motivation.

​Dr. Ani write that “Those few who have come to understand the principles of the European’s attitudes and behavior towards the cultural other (everyone who is not European) are considered to be paranoid, hateful, extreme, and violent by the rest who still relate to the European façade. (rhetorical ethic)” (Ani 415) This ethic is seen in the behavior that Europeans exhibit toward those that are considered to be the cultural other. The culture “requires an ‘other’ to absorb aggression and to allow a bond of identification to form between members of the culture” (Ani 482) Without the cultural other to direct the aggression endemic in European culture, they would in fact destroy themselves. The cultural other acts as a sort of safety valve, so that more violent tendencies of the culture can be directed outwardly. The idea of progress is touched upon in the final section. “It is progress that explains to Europeans it is their duty to exploit, conquer and control Africans and others who are different than them. The point is the rationale for an oppressive technical order, the rational ordering of the universe and the endeavor to dominate, oppress and destroy majority peoples, unite in a single ideological concept, the European ideology of progress” (Ani 507) Since the cultural other is not as “advanced”, the European feels justified in depriving them, with the intention on elevating them to a more “civilized” state. “While Europeans civilize us, they also bring ‘god’ to us. For us to want to be ‘civilized’, to want to find ‘god’ is to want to ‘progress’ toward being white. We accept the ideology that supports our exploitation. We participate in our own oppression.” (Ani 508) Since European ‘progress’ brings profit and political/cultural power, Dr. Ani questions why should Africans and other non-European peoples embrace it? This ties also to the theme of universalism. “As Europeans present their culture to the world, they do so consistently in universalistic terms.” (Ani 511) By disguising European interests as universal goal shared by all of humanity, Europeans pacify the victims of their aggression. It is of utmost importance to question all universalistic concepts and reject them when they are found to represent European values only.

​In conclusion, Yurugu is a book with a deep and extensive subject matter. However, the information within serves as a way to break away from European ideology, and return to a state focused on our Africanity. “Now that we have broken the power of their ideology, we must leave them and direct our energies toward the recreation of cultural alternatives informed by the ancestral visions of a future that celebrates our Africanness and encourages the best of the human spirit” (Ani 570) This book serves as a guide in which the threats to the psyche of majority peoples can be recognized and counteracted. Yurugu is highly recommended. Thank you for reading, and the next book will be Cultural Genocide in the Black and African Studies Curriculum by Dr. Yosef ben-Jochannan.

Favorite quote: "Whenever an oppressed black man shouts for equality he is called a racist. This was said of Marcus Garvey in his day. Imagine that! We are so inferior that if we demand equality of opportunity and power that is outrageously racist. Black people who speak up for their rights must beware of this devise of false accusations. It is intended to place you on the defensive and if possible embarrass you into silence. How can we be both oppressed and embarrassed? Is it that our major concern is not to hurt the feelings of the oppressor?" -- Walter Rodney.

​The Mis-education of the Negro was written in 1933, but could have been written this year. This is a book that has long been regarded as a classic of African-American literature, and was our October selection for our book club. Carter G. Woodson, the author of Mis-education, is known as the father of Black History and he started Black History Week (now Black History Month) in 1926. He was the second African American (after W.E.B. Dubois) to earn a PhD from Harvard University. Woodson makes the convincing argument that African Americans are not so much educated as they are indoctrinated to act in the best interests of their oppressors.

​Woodson says that "When you control a man's thinking you do not have to control his actions. You do not have to tell him to stand here or go yonder. He will find his "proper place and stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary" (Woodson 5.) In saying this, Woodson shows that once a person has been mis-educated by his oppressors, he will then live out this "education" to his detriment and the detriment of the entire race. Once a person has been educated thus, they are "compelled to move among his own people whom he has been taught to despise." (Woodson 5). The reason that educated black people have this attitude towards other blacks is that in school they are "taught to admire the Hebrew, the Greek, the Latin and the Teuton and to despise the African" (Woodson 7). When it comes to the study of language, blacks are taught English, Spanish, French, and other European languages, but "To the African languages as such no attention was given except in the case of the preparation of traders, missionaries, and public functionaries to exploit the natives." (Woodson 18). In the teaching of science, literature, fine arts, medicine, and history, the black race is excluded. What this creates is, according to Woodson, the idea that black people have done little to contribute to society. Once miseducated, that individual would begin to see little of value in his race.

What type of traits does an individual who is mis-educated have? For example, Woodson writes " Mis-educated by the oppressors of the race, such Negroes expect that Negro business will fail" (Woodson 31). Another example is the "evidences of the failure of higher education among Negroes is their estrangement from the masses, the very people upon whom they must eventually count for carrying out a program of progress" (Woodson 39). A mis-educated individual also neglects their political education as well. Woodson writes “Any people who will vote the same way for three generations without thereby obtaining results ought to be ignored and disenfranchised.” (Woodson 124) A person who is mis-educated has allowed his oppressor to interpret his religion. “By following the religion of his traducers, the Negroes do not show any more common sense than a people would in permitting criminals to enact the laws and establish the procedure of the courts by which they are to be tried.” (Woodson 101) Finally, a mis-educated person is unable to earn a living, and is instead dependent upon whites for employment. “The Negroes of today are unable to employ one another, and the Whites are inclined to call on Negroes only when workers of their own race have been taken care of. For the solution to this problem the mis-educated Negro has no remedy whatsoever.” (Woodson 31)

This is an intolerable situation, but Woodson offers a solution to the problem: An African based learning curriculum. Woodson writes, “The program for the uplift of the Negro in this country must be based upon a scientific study of the Negro from within to develop in him the power to do for himself what his oppressors will never do for him.” (Woodson 99) While the contributions of other races have made to society should not be ignored, special attention should be given to those groups who have been ignored. “We should not underrate the contributions on Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome; but we should give equally as much attention to the internal African kingdoms, the Songhay empire, and Ethiopia, which through Egypt decidedly influenced the civilization of the Mediterranean world.” (Woodson 104) We cannot ignore the contributions made by people of African descent to the progress of the world. As parents, we must take it upon ourselves to educate our children, to be proud of their heritage and build knowledge of self. To quote the honorable Marcus Garvey, “If Negroes knew more of their glorious history, they would be more inclined to respect themselves”.

In summary, The Miseducation of the Negro is truly a must read book for any person of African descent who considers themselves to be “conscious”. Even though it was written over 80 years ago, the book is a timeless classic with an abundance of relevant information for the 21st Century. Next month, I’ll be reviewing The Elite Way by Tariq Nasheed